


Dreams to Believe In

by Temporalis (Elvaron)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, dw secret santa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvaron/pseuds/Temporalis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I'm not the Doctor," he said quietly. "Not any more."</i>  When John Smith - one time superhero and defender of London - loses Rose Tyler, he decides to hang up the metaphorical cape forever. That is, until the Bad Wolf arrives in town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams to Believe In

**Author's Note:**

> For my Secret Santee who requested something fluffy and humorous! And possibly a superhero AU. 
> 
> I hit the superhero AU part, but the angst got away from me. (We'll get there! We'll hit that fluff and humour like ... like the way the Doctor lands the TARDIS in the right point in space/time with great accuracy!)
> 
> I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

_One day, one night, one moment,_  
With a dream to believe in.  
One step, one fall, one falter,  
And a new earth across a wide ocean.  
This way became my journey,  
This day ends together,  
Far and away.  
          -- Enya, **_Book of Days_**

* * *

"I'm sorry, Mister Smith, but the editor says no."

His fingers skittered across the surface of his desk, plucking uselessly at the rough edges, picking at the splinters. Outside, dusk had already fallen, the streetlights flickering on with a sense of lethargy that seemed to permeate the very air. "I can tweak the manuscript," he suggested, the fingers of his other hand drumming against the phone held against one ear. "Adjust the plot, rewrite chapters - I'm happy to take suggestions, you know that."

"I'm sorry." The voice on the other end of the line was tinny, but the sympathy - or was it pity? - carried through. "It's the premise, you see. It's just not quite what we're looking for."

"You liked my earlier works," he tried, but the attempt was almost mechanical, a sort of desperate, last ditch attempt, one that his heart wasn't even really in.

"Between you and me, I love your writing, I really do. But lately your plots seem a little… uninspired? Giant alien space-wasps isn't quite…"

The words trailed off, the fading syllables hanging in the air like the ghosts of Christmas past, before gliding quietly away. 

"I understand," he sighed. "Back to the drawing board then, eh?"

"All the best. I'm sure the inspiration will strike soon - I'm looking forward to your next manuscript."

"Thanks, Astrid," he returned. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, John."

A click, and the line went dead. Sighing, John dropped his head into his hands, staring blankly down at his computer keyboard. "Uninspired," he muttered. "That's a way of putting it."

He would have stayed in that position for a while, if his stomach hadn't chosen that time to rumble. Heaving another sigh, he scrubbed his hands across his face. Dragging himself out of his chair, he padded over to the small kitchenette, pulling open the fridge and squinting inside.

A mouldy block of cheese and a half-eaten jar of marmalade stared back at him. 

"Blimey," he muttered, swiping the jar and unscrewing it, absently dipping a finger in. As fond as he was of marmalade, even half a jar of it wasn't going to make a proper meal. He wondered if the chippy on the corner was open on Christmas Eve, and if not, whether it was still possible to order a pizza. But the thought of dinner made him think of a very different Christmas Eve, just a year past, of turkey and laughter and Christmas crackers--

\--pain lanced through his heart like a bolt. He gritted his teeth, then forced himself to relax, inhaling deeply. Counting to ten, he emptied his mind, carefully not thinking of a blonde hair and a brilliant smile, and focused instead on… anything else. Like the cold and empty flat in front of him, the threadbare sheets on the narrow bed wedged into a corner, the ghastly wallpaper that the landlord absolutely forbade him to get rid of, _her_ favourite purple cardigan on a hook--

\-- _impossible_ \--

\--he blinked, and it was gone, leaving only a long scarf of haphazard colouring. _She_ had made that for him, she of the spring breeze and the summer sun. She of the shining smile and the warmest heart. She that he had loved, and she that he had lost.

The scarf was the only reminder that he allowed himself, and there were still times when he could barely stand to look at it.

The empty flat was far too full of ghosts tonight, the silence echoing and haunting in its memories. Gripped by the urge to run, he shoved the marmalade back into the fridge, then snagged his coat, deciding to chance that chippy after all. Perhaps he could see if Wilf was at his usual shop. 

Tugging his coat on, he threw open the door, stepped out, and nearly collided headlong with a familiar figure in a long vintage coat. " _What_?"

"Doctor!" Jack Harkness crowed happily, a bottle in one hand and a pizza box in the other. "Merry Christmas!"

"Don't call me that," John snapped back, even as his mind scrambled to catch up. "What are you-- why are you-- aren't you in Cardiff?"

"I was," Jack said, grinning broadly. "But there was leftover pizza from the office party, and I thought - now, who can I give this to? And I remembered that there was a starving writer up in London who, in the words of a good friend, is so skinny that you'd get a papercut if you hugged him, so I thought - oh hey, that's perfect. Now, are you going to let me in, or what?"

Dumb-folded, John moved aside as Jack sauntered in. He mentally counted to five, and reached four before there was a bang from the inside of the flat and a "Jeez, don't you have any lights in here, Doc?!"

Rolling his eyes, he flicked the lights on and shut the door, folding his arms and leaning against it. "I told you - I'm not the Doctor," he said quietly. "Not any more."

The look that Jack shot him was dark and assessing. "You'll always be the Doctor to me," Jack said simply, before dropping the pizza and the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter, then hunting through the drawers. "Say, do you happen to have a…" he paused for dramatic effect.

" _Stop it,_ " John said.

"Corkscrew?" Jack asked.

Only Jack could make an innocent term sound absolutely filthy, John thought. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his sonic screwdriver, flipping to the correct setting before pointing it at the bottle. There was a soft pop as the cork wriggled out and went flying.

"So you kept that after all," Jack said, eying the device.

"Of course I did," John muttered, stuffing the sonic back into his pocket. "It's just a tool, it doesn't mean anything."

“If you say so,” Jack replied, hunting down two mismatched porcelain mugs and pouring the wine into them. “Here,” he said, handing one over. John accepted it somewhat reluctantly, still torn between tossing Jack out in a vain attempt to clutch at the rapidly disappearing remains of his solitude, and welcoming the way his friend's company chased away the ghosts in the air.

“Toast to the rest of the year? Or to next year, maybe?” Jack suggested.

“May it be a better one,” John found himself saying, as he touched his mug to Jack’s. “Though … It’s hard to imagine how it could be worse. But let’s not jinx it. Well… except I've probably already done that.” He sighed and reached for the box of pizza, his stomach starting to rumble in a manner that was undeniable. "This is still warm," he noted. "No way you brought it all the way up from Cardiff."

"Yeah," Jack replied, tossing a mouthful of wine. "I got hungry on the train up so I ate those slices. Had to pick more up at the pizza place on the corner." 

The lie was obvious, but John didn't try to push him. Jack was an old friend, and John was glad enough for his presence. It helped to keep the ghosts at bay, if nothing else. 

"You know," Jack said, glancing pointedly around. "This place has seen better days."

John shrugged, washing mouthful of pizza down with his wine. "Of course it has. It's not like I own a transdimensional house that can pull furnishings out of thin air." 

Jack snorted a bit that, but his expression, when he glanced back at John, was considering. "Listen, I know you like London, but if the writing business isn't treating you so well, you're always welcome to come stay with us in Cardiff. We can always do with some help."

John had half been expecting that, and it wasn't the first time Jack had made that offer, but he felt himself freeze anyway. The glare that he shot Jack must have been stony, enough to elicit the raise of a skeptical eyebrow from the other, but not enough to quell him. Jack was as stubborn as he was, after all. "You know I don't do that any more," he replied, because Jack had set his mug down and folded his arms with the belligerent look of someone who was willing to wait for all eternity for a satisfactory answer. And given that this was Jack Harkness, who possessed the gift of immortality, it was entirely possible for him to do just that.

"I'm just a writer," John continued, when it looked like Jack was just going to sit there and say nothing. "The Doctor died at Canary Wharf." He swallowed a mouthful of wine, draining his mug. The alcohol tasted like ashes on his tongue. Too late, he remembered why he didn't drink.

"That's not what she would have wanted," Jack said. The uttered words were quiet, but to John, they felt like bullets to the chest, igniting an explosion of pain and fury. 

"What would you know about it?" he hissed. "You weren't there when that blast went off; you didn't feel her fingers slip through yours as she fell--" He squeezed his eyes shut, the memories raw as though it had happened yesterday. _The blast in Torchwood One's offices, the bomb that they -- that he - hadn't be able to disarm in time. Heat pulsing over his skin as Rose pushed him aside, and the scream of tortured metal as the floor they were standing on gave way._

_Rose's look of terrified desperation as she dangled over the edge, her fingers locked in a white-knuckled, shaking grip around his own. His voice, so rent with panic that he barely recognised it, yelling 'hang on' as he tried to haul her up._

_The second blast, the one that tore Rose's hand from his._

_His scream, echoing through the building, as she fell, fell, fell._

The grief stuck in his throat, a lump that he swallowed back, even as he drove the heels of his palms into his eyes, as though that could hold back the tears that burned behind his closed lids. Jack's hand was on his shoulder, and his voice seemed to come from very far away, calling his name, dragging him back to the present.

"--wasn't your fault. Listen to me. It _wasn't your fault_."

He glanced up furiously. "How was it not?" he snapped, the words a snarl. "I'm the one with superpowers, I'm the one who can _see time itself_ , and I didn't see this. The one person who meant everything to me and _I didn't even see her death_." He slumped back against the wall, hitting his head, using the pain as an anchor in an effort to stabilise himself. Part of him was vaguely aware that he was taking his grief and anger out on an innocent man - Jack was the last person who deserved this, after all - but this was how it always went - that he blundered through life and dragged the ones he called friends down with him. 

No, he was definitely better off on his own.

"John--"

"Forget it, Jack," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and blindly reaching for his mug again. "I've switched off my time sense. It's over."

"Listen." He wasn't sure when Jack had moved to stand beside him, pressing a slice of pizza into his outstretched hand instead of the hoped for wine. "You're a whole lot more than your gift. Rose didn't love you because you could see the future." He flinched. Jack ignored it, and pressed on. "You aren't a hero because you can see time streams. You don't save the day and countless lives because you're prescient."

"Jack--" he said, in a vain attempt to turn the conversation to something else, but Jack would not be determined.

"Doc," Jack said, gripping his shoulder. "You save lives because you're brilliant, smarter than everyone else, and most importantly, _because you care_."

He sucked in a breath. _Hang on,_ he'd told Rose. _Hang on, I'll save you._

"Fat lot of good that was," he muttered, tossing the pizza slice back into the box, his appetite abruptly gone. "Because I care, you say? Well, I've stopped caring." Closing the pizza box, he held it out to the other. "You'd best be on your way. I'm sure your team is missing you."

Jack stared at him for a long moment, his gaze sharp and assessing. With a shake of his head, he declined the box and started for the door. "Keep it," he said. "And listen, our doors are always open to you. Call sometimes, won't you?"

John's resounding silence spoke volumes in itself. Jack sighed, opened the door, and let himself out. The gust of cold wind that made it in through the doorway felt like it could sink claws into his very bones.

\--

_"I wish I could say it was bigger on the inside, but I'm afraid it's not," he said, opening the door to his apartment._

_"It's perfect," Rose said, grinning at him, and the brightness of that smile momentarily drove conscious thought from his mind. She must have caught him gaping, for her grin only grew, and she snagged him by the sleeve, dragging him in._

_"Would you like a drink--" he started, but she had let go of his hand and was already whirling through the apartment._

_"Blue curtains? That's a bit adventurous of you," she said. "I thought you would go for something boring."_

_"What's wrong with blue?" he asked, perplexed._

_Her laughter floated back to him. "Nothing. It's just that it looks like it was cut from the same cloth as your favourite suit."_

_He glanced down at his pinstripes. "Welllll," he replied, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. "It might have been."_

_"You're hopeless," Rose said._

_"Which is precisely why I have you, Rose Tyler. I need someone to set me on the straight and narrow. Or at least, the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey." He grinned and leaned against the door, content to watch her pry into every corner of his apartment._

_"You know what this place needs?" she exclaimed abruptly, spinning to face him._

_"This place wants for nothing. It's fully equipped, perfect for any occasion."_

_"A Christmas tree," Rose said. "You need a Christmas tree."_

_He blinked. "Whatever would I need a Christmas tree for?"_

_Rose held up a finger, then hunted around in her bag, before producing a lumpy package, carefully wrapped in shiny paper. "Where else are you going to leave the presents?"_

\--

The microwave was refusing to work, and the pizza, left overnight in the fridge, was stone cold. John shook his head and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, figuring that it was as good a way to spend a Christmas morning as any. It wasn't as if he had any presents to unwrap. 

_He'd never gotten the tree. There had been an invasion of killer robot Santas the next day, and they'd been distracted, and they'd said they would get the tree the next time Christmas rolled round. And now that she was gone, what use did he have for Christmas trees?_

Dismantling the microwave distracted him from more morose thoughts. Tinkering was one of his favourite past times, and he'd lost count of the number of times he'd upgraded the kitchen equipment, usually to Rose's consternation when she found that the toaster had stopped producing toast, and now produced tea. He was elbows deep in the guts of his microwave, unaware of the way the hours were slipping past, when a series of knocks fell on his door, the staccato reports like gunshots in the quiet that had fallen over the apartment. Nearly jumping out of his skin, he glanced over at the door, wondering just who would be dropping by on a Christmas morning. The knocks hadn't sounded like Jack, and--

"Oi, spaceman!" 

He was on his feet in an instant. There was no mistaking that voice, or the impatience in it, and sure enough--

"It's bloody freezing out here, and I know that you're home. You have five seconds to open this door, mister, before I--"

He flung the door open, a delighted cry of "Donna!" on his lips, before he had to duck backwards to avoid his best friend's fist as she attempted to pound on the no-longer-quite-shut door. Sure enough, there was Donna on his doorstep, wrapped up in a fur coat that looked larger than she was. 

"High time too," she huffed, but there was a smile on her face that belied her words. "I've been standing out here for _hours_."

"Two minutes thirty two seconds, actually," John said, before he could stop himself, and got a glare from Donna before she shoved past him to get into the apartment, shutting the door quickly behind her. 

"You really could turn the heat up in here," she huffed, glancing around. "I know you're a Martian, but really." 

"I'm not from Mars," he replied automatically. "What brings you here, Donna? Mind the microwave, some of those pieces are sharp."

Donna avoided the carnage on the floor with the air of someone who had done it a million times, then shoved a package into his arms. John stared down at it - wrapped in brown paper and string, something soft and didn't rattle when he shook it - and wondered what it was.

"Merry Christmas," Donna said, and there was no mistaking the excitement in her voice. When he didn't move, she nudged him with her elbow in undisguised impatience. "Go on, then. Open it."

"What, right now?" he asked, while he abruptly recalled that he hadn't, in fact, gotten any kind of gift for Donna. 

"No, next year, you prawn. Of _course_ right now!" Donna said, with a roll of her eyes. "Are you eating pizza for breakfast? On Christmas? I knew you were bonkers, but that takes the cake."

"I was going to eat it for lunch, actually," he pointed out, fiddling with the strings and only succeeding in getting them entangled. Giving up, he produced his trusty sonic and burned through the string, peeling the wrapping open with a sense of anticipation that was curiously tinged with dread. 

Brown paper gave way to brown fabric. He ran his fingers over it, abruptly choked up, before almost reverentially picking it out of its wrappings, his heart thudding in his chest. 

It was a coat. And not just any coat - it was a mirror image of _the_ coat. 

_He could still remember the first time he'd worn the coat. The original one, that was, the one he'd lost at Canary Wharf. He'd been the Doctor for a while, a job that had stayed constant even though his wardrobe hadn't. He'd been enamoured with the thought of a signature look, when he'd been younger, but had been unable to find it. He'd wandered from somber to exotic (in hindsight, the decorative vegetable had been adventurous, even for him), even engaging in a riot of colour once that had gotten Jack killed because he'd been laughing too hard to focus on the enemy. He'd finally settled on black leather, practical and easy to clean, ignoring the way Jack had choked before giving him a look that could best be described as 'appreciative'. That alone had made him vow never to wear leather in front of Jack Harkness ever again._

_It was _that_ escapade that had led them to Henrik's, a group of killer Autons, and a certain blonde by the name of Rose Tyler. And somewhere, somehow, amidst racks of clothing, her hand in his as they ran from killer mannequins, his eyes had landed on a brown suit with blue pinstripes, and he'd known exactly what kind of look he wanted._

_He'd snagged the suit from the rack and the coat off one of the chasing mannequins, while Rose laughed and called him insane all in the same breath. He'd asked her if brown was his colour, this girl that he'd met just minutes before, and she'd slapped him on the arm, biting her tongue, and that was the moment he'd fallen for her._

_And oh, what a fall it had been._

"John," a soft voice said, gently nudging him out from under the fog of memories. 

"Oh," he said, glancing up at Donna. He smiled hastily, but just a heartbeat too late; the look in her eyes said she'd seen right through him. "It's lovely," he said, as quickly as he could. Shaking it out, he pulled it on before he could think twice about the motion ( _don't think about the fire on your back, don't think about the smoke choking your lungs, don't think about the searing pain in your skin that feels like a dull ache next to the vortex in your heart_ ) and grinned, adjusting the sleeves. "Look! A perfect fit!"

Donna eyed him for a moment before shaking her head minutely and smiling, then moving to adjust his collar. "Alright then," she declared, giving him a critical once over. "Now that you're properly attired, we're going to get a bite." Grabbing his hand, she marched him towards the door, while he danced over scattered microwave components, protests falling like ornaments off an upended Christmas tree. Said protests were promptly zipped when Donna shot him a quelling look, and, awkwardly tugging on his converse, he let drag her out into the nippy cold of Christmas Day. The brown coat flapped around his calves, a familiar weight, but it smelt of wrapping paper instead of Rose.


End file.
